The New TOEFL iBT: Format, 1–6 Scores & Strategy
The TOEFL iBT is accepted by more than 12,000 institutions worldwide. Since January 2026 it has a new design: shorter sections, more everyday (not only academic) English, and multistage adaptive Reading and Listening sections — the difficulty of the second stage depends on how well you did in the first.
Because the test adapts, the number of questions and the time can vary slightly. Plan for about two hours in total. You can take it at a test centre or at home (Home Edition) with a live human proctor.
Section times are the base times given by ETS; directions are not included.
| Section | Time (approx.) | Task types |
|---|---|---|
| Reading | 30 minutes | Complete the Words · Read in Daily Life · Read an Academic Passage |
| Listening | 29 minutes | Listen and Choose a Response · Listen to a Conversation · Listen to an Announcement · Listen to an Academic Talk |
| Writing | 23 minutes | Build a Sentence · Write an Email · Write for an Academic Discussion |
| Speaking | 8 minutes | Listen and Repeat · Take an Interview |
Each section gets a band from 1 to 6 in half-band steps, and the overall score is the average of the four, rounded to the nearest half band. Until early 2028, score reports also show a comparable score on the old 0–120 scale, because many universities still state their requirements that way.
| Band | CEFR level |
|---|---|
| 6.0 | C2 |
| 5.0–5.5 | C1 |
| 4.0–4.5 | B2 |
| 3.0–3.5 | B1 |
| 2.0–2.5 | A2 |
| 1.0–1.5 | A1 |
- Do your best in the first stage of Reading and Listening: a strong first stage routes you to the harder second stage, where higher bands are possible.
- Spelling and grammar matter more than before: Complete the Words tests spelling, and Build a Sentence tests word order.
- Everyday English counts: emails, notices, campus conversations and informal expressions now appear alongside academic texts.
- Speaking is short and has no preparation time: practise answering familiar questions for 45 seconds without stopping.